A Celebration of Babies

Today, my old RE's office hosted a Celebration of Babies. They invited all of the patients who they helped become parents.

It was so cool. It wasn't a huge deal. Just a tent in the parking lot of the office. Balloons, face painting, and cupcakes for the kids, and pictures with Dr. G. A couple of hours hanging out outside in the nice weather, chatting with other parents.

Jeff and I agreed it was unlike any party we've ever been to. Usually, we at least know someone. Here, we were all strangers, but with something in common. It's not like the RE's office invites lots of chatting and new friends. So it was neat to talk to people who are every bit as grateful for their children as we are for Cate. Singleton babies like Cate were definitely the minority, but what can you expect from a party thrown for former RE patients?

It was awesome. I think Dr. G really liked seeing all the kids, and I know the nurses did. They said they're going to try it every year, and I really hope they do.

Fall Crafty-ness

This is what I did today. I saw the idea on Pinterest, but I didn't have an account when I found it and now can't find it to give credit to the creator of it. If I do, I'll update this.

Supplies: one 12x12 canvas. (I suppose you could use whatever size you want, that's just what I grabbed.) One fat quarter (I think that's what they're called) from the fabric store. Scissors, spray adhesive, black spray paint, staple gun, ribbon, and hot glue. Oh, and paper letters.

First, I covered one of the canvases with the fabric, using the staple gun to staple it to the wood frame. I really should have ironed or washed the fabric first, but I was too impatient to get started. :)

I used my cri.cut to make a stencil for a friend the other day, so I used the letters she didn't need to make this. I laid them out to make sure they'd fit where I wanted them.

My little crafty helper. Totally not interested in looking at the camera.

I used some re-adujustable spray adhesive to get my letters to stick. When I found this on pinterest, she recommended using contact paper to begin with. That probably would have been easier and less messy, but the glue worked just fine.

After I got my letters where I wanted them, I sprayed the whole thing with black spray paint. You can kind of see where the letters started peeling up when they got wet, but they stayed down long enough to get the job done.

I waited about 15 minutes before peeling the letters off. I didn't want them to dry on there, but I didn't want to mess up the spray paint.

I waited another hour or so, then sprayed the whole thing with shellac, just in case. Then, I took some orange ribbon and braided it for the hanger, and hot-glued it to the back. I love it, because it looks like the handle to a candy basket. So excited to go hang it, just waiting for the glue to dry!

This was super fun. I have another canvas, and some more material (that's currently in the washer!) I think I'm going to do a jack o'lantern on the next one, since I can't reuse my letters. Of course, I can't cut out a pumpkin on my cri.cut, so I'll have to free hand it. I'll let you know how it goes!